A Subtle Misspelling
Way, Shape, or FormLook for this song, A Subtle Misspelling, on the upcoming album “Person, Place, or Thing” later this summer!
Lyrics: Way, Shape, or Form and Glory Szabo
Glory Szabo
Writer
How long have you been living in Richmond?
Since last August. I was trying to expand my horizons as an artist and subject myself to a new experience that could inspire my writing. I was living in Lynchburg before where there was an emerging artists community and figured that moving to Richmond would be a step ahead. Here the artist community already exists, it’s not something that I have to help create.
Have you always had an interest in writing?
In a sense because I always had a diary for my private thoughts but never thought of it as a career or something that I’d want to devote my entire life to. My writing had always been a private thing but it became public when I shared some of my poetry and prose about relationships at a reading that 70 people showed up to that my friends and I organized. The turnout completely blew my mind and having people come up to me after I shared my darkest secrets helped me pursue writing more proactively. But the idea was never publicity for its own sake. More for empathy, for people to have something to relate to that are reading [or listening to] my writing. That connection, that sense of being understood is, of course, mutually cathartic for my readers and for me as well.
How have you benefited from using tumblr?
The tumblr community keeps me inspired and is what keeps me going as an artist and in my personal life. I have found other artists to do collaborations with and this has been very inspiring, but perhaps seeing the feedback and support that I get from my followers is even more encouraging. It’s amazing that I can post one of my regrets that I cannot even forgive myself and see that so many people identify with it, and love me all the same although they don’t even know me.
Your writing is very vulnerable. How do you decide what you write about and what you choose not to?
I usually write what I don’t want to tell anybody. I think people are starving for connections, me being one of them, and it takes opening up to other people to feel understood. You have to be brave for that. Also, writing is magical because somehow it allows you to express the feelings that you are afraid to admit to, even to yourself.
Glory Szabo is an editor for the radars of poetry and pose tags on tumblr. For her work, visit her tumblr at ireadintothings.tumblr.com and also check out the poetry and prose tags on tumblr.
Don't Read Into This...
I made the mistake of telling you the truth. It slipped out.
“I teeter on the line of miserable and pathetic.”
“You look pretty good to me.”
“Lots of practice.” and even then I smiled as if it was funny to have to hide how I feel. But it’s not. We moved on, changed subjects about a dozen times and only finished half of them. A silence crept in after the jokes were done and we realized this was probably the best company either one of us would get for a long time. Because that’s how it works when you’re a lonely writer. You come across the opportunity to meet anyone though you’re looking for No One. Because No One matters more.
And as that silence passed you took in your 6th beer and I wished for more pills. We are so fucked, and I thought to thank you for helping me forget it a little while. When the words pressed forward everything stopped, and I instead said, goodbye.
“i feel isolated from other people and i find them hard to connect with. as if who i thought they were never was actually them, you know? i find the whole concept of personhood enigmatic. when i try to get to know someone, and i feel like i am only a stretch of an arm away, when i can almost get to who they really are apart from who i think they are, when i can almost touch and feel someone at their very core, the whole thing escapes me all together and withers away and i feel alone again.”
—Glory Szabo
I study
Your body,
I know what it means when you
Scratch your nose like you do,
When you raise your eyebrows,
Or when you squint your eyes in different ways.
You have exactly fourteen stars in your eyes.
I know this because I’ve counted them.
When you are asleep in my arms
-because you always fall asleep before me,
I look at the little dimples on your face,
And how beautifully your profile is arranged
With your forehead and nose and lips and chin,
Like little hills, very conveniently,
For my fingers to run through gently,
And for my eyes to rest on,
And for my lips
To kiss.
